Sentience

The aim of this paper is to dissociate Metaphysics and Theology. In Metaphysics, I propose a Neutral Monist foundation of the Being of Reality, which is, therefore, not material or ideal, but a cosmic field of possibilities that generates both domains. God is conceived as one possibility embedded in the Being of Reality that may or may not become actual, depending on conditions established by the evolution of the Cosmos.As far as we know, the conditions for the actualization of God are satisfied by human consciousness. The relation between the Being of Reality and its outcomes, as the realization of God in human society, is one of actualization of potentialities, as in Aristotelian philosophy. This approach leads to a Feuerbachian view of God as emergent in social conscious experience, achieving embodied expression in human social practices, from the legitimate symbolic message of prophets, in sacred texts, rituals, images, buildings, and social institutions implemented by religious organizations.

J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello is about animal rights and animal Ethics. In this novel, an aging novelist gives a series of lectures about animals and their moral status. Elizabeth Costello takes issue with the tradition of Western philosophical thought which is based on the binary opposition between reason and emotion. In Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk’s Janina Duszejko is also an elderly woman haunted by the horror of what human beings do to animals. The present interdisciplinary study -a library-based qualitative research- reviews the similarities between these two characters and aims to show that Duszejko could be seen as Costello’s alter ego. It surveys the writers’ choice of sentience over reason, the way the texts have undermined the arguments of their major characters, and the similarities between animals and prisoners of concentration camps. Findings show that Coetzee and Tokarczuk do not uphold the Western tradition that divides experience into reason/emotion, masculine/ feminine, justice/ love, and public/ private. In both novels, the writers avoid binary oppositions and through Costello and Duszejko ask the readers/audiences to open their hearts and become one with their victims.